She reached the end of the street and scurried to a halt. A crossroads confronted her and she had no idea which path to take. The red dress that had been like a beacon shining her onwards had seemingly disappeared into thin air. She could have cried with vexation. She would have to choose one of these pathways, but which? As she hesitated, a figure stepped out from behind her, a figure that had been waiting silently in the shadows. She felt an iron grip close around her arm and her heart somersaulted in fear.
‘You should go no further, Miss Ingram.’
Her mind blurred at the sound of the familiar voice. ‘What...!’ She tried to twist around, but remained locked in Justin Delacourt’s hard grasp.
‘You are hurting me.’ She was breathing fast, more from the shock of his sudden appearance than from any pain he was inflicting.
‘Forgive me, but I had to stop you from venturing any further into this den of villainy. We must retrace our steps immediately.’
‘I will leave as soon as my business is finished and not before.’ Indignation had replaced the initial shock and her limbs no longer trembled. She was so close to her goal and no one was going to stop her, certainly not the man who had shown contempt for the information she had brought him.
But Justin Delacourt had other ideas. ‘You will leave now,’ he said simply, his tone implacable. ‘You will place your arm on mine and we will walk to the end of the street as calmly as though we were out for an evening stroll.’
‘But...’
‘No buts. We are being watched and, if I am not mistaken, we could be attacked at any moment. That is a fine ruby ring you are wearing and I had not the forethought to remove this handsome timepiece from my jacket.’
‘I cannot leave yet. I have a most important task still to accomplish.’ Her protest was half-hearted for his hand was still firm on her arm and she knew that he could make her do exactly what he wanted.
‘Enough,’ he commanded. ‘Whatever your mission, you must abandon it. Now take my arm. We will walk slowly and all will be well.’
She had no alternative but to do as he wished. She felt the sinews of his arm against hers and his hand guiding her firmly towards the broader streets that ran upwards to the Citadel and eastwards towards the bustling port. She had been so focused on her quest that meeting him in that unlikely place had come as a shock, and it had been an even greater shock to realise the danger she was in. The minute she had spied that red dress, her quest had become all-consuming and she had blithely ignored the very real possibility that she might be attacked.
They retraced their steps until once more they stood at the bottom of Mermaid Street, the coastal path lying ahead of them. She felt braver now, brave enough to disentangle her arm and to throw out a challenge.
‘I thank you for your escort, Sir Justin, though I am unsure what right you have to determine where I walk.’ She knew he had acted with good sense, but she had no intention of acknowledging it.
‘I have no right, Miss Ingram, simply a wish to save you from unpleasantness. You should not be walking in that area and particularly not at nightfall’
They stood facing each other. The river below them snaked its way blackly to the sea. Here and there when the clouds above parted, licks of silver danced across its surface, but on the far bank the marshy plain lay flat and dark, crouching like some latent beast ready to strike. She shuddered involuntarily.
‘Allow me to escort you home.’
‘Thank you, but there is no need. The path is straight and I know it well.’
‘I hate to contradict a lady twice in one evening, but I consider there is every need. Please take my arm again and I will see you safely to Brede House.’
Something in his voice made her do as he asked. Something in her wished to do it, to feel the warmth of his thigh as she walked close beside him, to feel his comforting nearness.
‘Why were you there?’ he asked conversationally and out of the blue.
‘I lost my way.’
‘Really? You have a habit of losing your way, it seems.’
She was grateful that the dusk hid her spreading flush. ‘Why were you there?’ she countered.
‘I will come clean,’ he said engagingly. ‘I was looking for the woman you called Rosanna.’
‘So you did believe me!’
‘It wasn’t a case of believing or not believing. You gave me information and I felt duty bound to follow it up.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘A great deal—and yet, at the same time, nothing.’
Her mouth hardened into a severe line. ‘You are setting out deliberately to puzzle me, I collect,’ she said coldly.
‘Forgive me, Miss Ingram, that is not at all my wish. I discovered that Rosanna is an intimate of several unsavoury gentlemen who are suspected of having formed a new smuggling gang. Also that an excise man—presumably on their trail—fell to his death just before Gilbert Armitage disappeared and that it was recorded as an accident by the magistrate. It is how all these things fit together that mystifies me and makes me feel I have got nowhere. It would seem, though, that Rosanna is the key.’
‘I told you so,’ she said triumphantly. ‘And if you had not stopped me, I would have discovered just what she knows of your friend’s whereabouts.’
‘Again, I must disagree. The woman you were pursuing had disappeared. She had melted away and could have been in any one of those buildings. If it is any consolation, I lost sight of her at the same time as you. There are bolt holes aplenty in that wretched quarter and you would never have found her—and might well have had your throat cut in trying.’
‘Are you not being a little melodramatic?’ She tried to shrug off his warning, but her voice was shaky.
They had reached the beginning of the drive to Brede House and he came to a halt and stood facing her. In the clouded light his expression was solemn but concerned. ‘I am the last person in the world to cry wolf, Lizzie, and when I tell you that you were in great danger, you must believe me.’
She was charmed by the way in which her pet name had unconsciously slipped from him. That is how he thinks of me, she thought, as Lizzie—not Miss Ingram.
He captured her hands in a hard grasp. ‘You must never go to that part of the town again!’
His touch was making her feel light-headed, or was it simply fatigue? She struggled to maintain her composure for she had an argument to make. ‘Then how are we to discover the truth? I am certain that Rosanna lodges in one of those houses. We must find her and question her.’
‘We are not going to find her. You will leave this investigation to me, do you understand?’
She pulled her hands from his. ‘You are so used to giving orders that you think to command women as though they were part of the military.’
‘I doubt that I could command you.’ His smile was laconic. ‘And did you not express a wish to be a soldier? That involves taking orders, you know.’
She tossed her head angrily and began to walk towards the house when he grabbed hold of her arm to detain her. ‘Tell me, whatever possessed you to go searching for the woman?’
‘You made me very angry when you refused to believe me,’ she returned candidly. ‘I decided to show you how wrong you were.’
‘If I admit to my fault, will you promise to let the matter lie?’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘It wasn’t just that I wanted to prove you wrong. It was an adventure as well.’
He raised his eyebrows at her confession. ‘And that is important?’
‘It promised to enliven my life.’
‘It would certainly do that. But I cannot imagine that adventure can be so important to you that you would deliberately walk into danger.’
‘You cannot imagine because your life is one long adventure. Mine has been spent in a seminary
. Think of it—the whole of my life in a girls’ school, and in Bath of all places.’
‘It sounds a trifle dull.’ There was sympathy, but it was edged with caution.
‘It was abysmally dull.’
‘And you were at the school because your father was serving abroad?’ She nodded. ‘But did you have no female relations to care for you? What of your mother?’
‘You need not worry,’ she said seeing the concern in his face. ‘My mother died when I was a baby and I know nothing of her.’ She fingered the band on her finger. ‘I have only this ring as remembrance. An elderly aunt looked after me until I was seven and then she died, too. Perhaps I have that effect on people.’ Despite the joke, she could not prevent a note of wistfulness.
‘And then...’ he prompted.
‘And then my father placed me at the Bates Seminary for Young Girls and there I’ve stayed ever since—well, with a few exceptions,’ she said unguardedly.
‘And what exceptions would they be?’
‘I did try to escape.’
‘Tell me.’ He leaned back against the iron gatepost, clearly entranced.
‘When I was nine I packed my most treasured possessions in a large handkerchief and started to walk to Bristol. I must have seen an illustration of Dick Whittington. Bristol is not that far from Bath, you know—though perhaps a little too far when you are nine,’ she added pensively.
He burst out laughing. ‘I would imagine so. What happened?’
‘I got as far as Twiverton. It’s a small village where everyone seems to spend their time watching everyone else. Anyway the local beadle caught me and would not let me go until he had made enquiries. Of course, he found out where I came from and I was duly returned to Miss Bates.’
‘How did she respond to your bid for freedom?’
‘She was kind, I think. At least not too cross—not as cross as she was when I tried to join the travelling circus.’ She saw the astonishment on his face. ‘I didn’t actually want to join them, but they were on their way to Southampton and it seemed a good opportunity.’
‘Does Miss Bates by any chance sport white hair?’
‘She does—but I’m sure she had it before I ever came on the scene.’
‘I don’t share your confidence. But why this desire to get to the coast?’
‘I wanted to reach Spain,’ she said simply. ‘Well, the first time I wanted to get to Canada—my father was still there after he fought in the American War. Later it was the Peninsula. Canada or Spain, I had little idea where either country was—I just wanted to find my father.’
‘And the circus was your last bid to travel abroad?’
‘Oh, no.’ She was abruptly downcast. ‘But it is all history.’ She had no intention of disclosing that particular episode, it was too shameful.
The breeze had picked up as they talked and she shivered a little from her inadequate clothing.
‘Here’, and he removed his jacket. ‘How ungallant of me to keep you talking while you are slowly freezing to death.’
‘Now that is melodramatic,’ she said shyly, ‘but thank you.’
He sheltered her with his jacket, pulling her very slightly towards him as he did so. She felt her face brushing his broad chest and the sound of his heart beating through her. His hands lingered on her shoulders, then stretched themselves towards temptation. She felt the lightest touch—fingers stroking her neck and slowly tangling themselves in the strands of hair that had come loose from beneath her bonnet. For a moment the clouds parted and a fingernail of moon floated across the dark arc of the sky, illuminating his golden halo of hair. Everything about him was beautiful, she thought. Everything. His lips were so close she could see their outline. His mouth hovered and she could almost feel its warmth on hers. She waited, her breath stilled, her body softening towards him.
‘Come,’ he said brusquely. ‘We must get you indoors before you become any colder.’
She felt a confusion of emotions: anger, humiliation and deep, sinking disappointment. To cover her turmoil, she turned without another word and walked down the drive towards Brede House. He strolled silently beside her, neither of them speaking until they reached the front entrance.
‘You must leave finding Rosanna to me,’ he reiterated. ‘I want you to promise.’
It was as though their earlier conversation had never been interrupted, as though the moment of intimacy between them had never happened. She was forced to nod her agreement for there was nothing else she could say or do. Misinterpreting her dismay, he tried to reassure her.
‘I will undertake to talk to the woman as soon as I can. You can be sure that I will find out whatever she knows.’
She tried to collect herself, tried to pretend that his touch had been as unimportant to her as it evidently was to him.
‘That is all very well, but what if she will not talk to you?’ It was a last attempt to save her adventure.
‘She will,’ he said, grimly.
And Lizzie had to believe him.
Chapter Five
Justin woke the next morning feeling strangely unsure. Every day of his life and virtually every minute of every day since he joined the army six years ago, he had been quite certain of who he was, where he was going and what he was doing. But today he felt unsure. Finding the woman Rosanna might not be as easy as he hoped, but that was not what was concerning him. He guessed that a few greased palms would help to track her down and similar largesse might get her talking. He did not share Lizzie’s conviction that Rosanna would lead him to his missing friend, but if the woman could add anything to the sketchy picture he had so far managed to construct, it would be worth the effort. If he could pass on to the Armitages the slightest piece of new information, he would feel better.
And it would show Lizzie Ingram that he had fulfilled his promise to her. She was the reason, of course, that he was feeling insecure. How foolish—a girl he barely knew, a girl he’d met only days ago, and a wayward one at that. She had thought nothing of wandering at dusk into the worst parts of the town and all in the name of some unspecified adventure. Her childhood exploits had made him smile, but last night she could have been seriously harmed and that was not so amusing. It was not amusing either that he had come near to kissing her. No wonder he had woken this morning feeling decidedly uncomfortable. What had possessed him to get so close? He was honest enough to admit that she had got under his skin from the moment he’d seen her, but that if anything should have made him more circumspect. Instead, having rescued her from the danger of Rye’s back streets, he had pushed them both towards an even greater danger. Even as he’d felt the touch of her breath on his cheeks, he’d sensed her body soften towards him and seen her full lips raised to his. The image returned with devastating clarity—it was enough to send a man crazy.
Is this what had happened to his dear father? Had he experienced such overwhelming desire that he’d thrown his whole life into chaos—his career, his family, his estate—in order to satisfy it? And what had been the result: nothing but disillusion and bitterness. He had grown up with his father’s pain and sworn when he was little more than a child that he would never, ever follow in Sir Lucien’s footsteps. So what on earth was he doing last night? He was no better than a moth singed by the flame, he chided himself, unable to resist the auburn curls, the dark-brown eyes, the saucy smile—above all, the smile. It was a novel experience and he did not like it. It made him restless and impatient with his life when his whole concentration should be on getting Chelwood on a secure footing before he returned to his beloved regiment.
This morning he abandoned any idea of sitting down to breakfast and went instead to the estate office. Mellors was already there and greeted him with a gloomy face.
‘Beggin’ your lordship’s pardon, but I’ve been goin’ through the account books fer the last few years an
d the estate’s losin’ money by the month. We don’t charge proper rents, Sir Justin, that’s the nub of it. There’s some tenants paying what their grandfathers did. We must raise our rents, there’s no ’elp for it.’
Justin turned away from the stack of ledgers hugging the table. ‘I have no wish to bleed my tenants dry, Mellors.’
‘Nothin’ like that, sir. Just a modest increase, I’m thinkin’. It’d be more than justified. There’s farmers over Hawkshead livin’ high on the hog while we can’t afford to mend the stable roof.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ Justin’s voice expressed all the weariness he felt. Remorse was still biting deep—Sir Lucien had died alone while his only son was a thousand miles away, happily ignorant of Chelwood’s problems. If only he had not stayed away so long, if only he had known how burdensome the estate had become to an increasingly frail man.
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